Quail Questions

I am very interested in getting a few quail for my farmette that i have. I have 10 chickens and i was wondering what is the best breed of quail? Are they kept in cages or can you let them free range with your chickens? can they be kept inside? and what do you feed them? where can you get them during the winter?

The best breed of quail in most peoples opinion for food and eggs is the coturnix. They hatch in about 17 days, and in about 6 weeks are ready to cull and mate where another poplular quail is the bobwhite which takes about 22 days to hatch and about 16 weeks to mature but dont start laying till about 20 weeks so they are more popular for meat and not eggs. The average weight for coturnix is about 3-5 ounces but selective breed quail also know as jumbos can get up to a pound. Its is best to keep them in cages as they are strong flyers but you can clip their wings, they are prey to almost everything, and most likely will not return to a coop like chickens do. You can keep them inside but will have to clean the cage often, Here is a pretty cool indoor setup by a person on this fourm. As chicks you should feed them a game bird starter with a protein percent of about 24-30%, and can continue to feed them that or move them to a different game bird feed. If your planing on hunting them you can use a flight developer game bird. If you plan to make them lay year round buy using a light so they have 15 or more hours of light you want to keep them on a 24% or higher feed. You should also use crushed up oyster shells to help them lay eggs. I ordered my coturnix at strombergs a few weeks ago and they still have them. They dont sell chicks from what i can tell so you will have to hatch the eggs https://www.strombergschickens.com/prod_detail_list/Quail-Button-and-Japanese Good luck if you have any more questions just ask and if i got something wrong someone please correct me

I am very interested in getting a few quail for my farmette that i have. I have 10 chickens and i was wondering what is the best breed of quail? Are they kept in cages or can you let them free range with your chickens? can they be kept inside? and what do you feed them? where can you get them during the winter

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Breed will depend on what you want quail for. Bobwhites don't mature to breed for 30 weeks and will only lay eggs the first May after they have reached that age. They will lay about 100 eggs a year before they stop until they next year artificial light can used to push production up to 200 eggs per year but months of rest are needed between laying sessions. They can be processed at 16-20 weeks with the top of the growth curve coming around the 24th week. Bobwhites are most popular for dog training and shooting preserves.

Coturnix mature at 8-12 weeks depending on genetics. They are usually breeding and laying eggs within that time. you can process them for meat any time after 6 weeks with the top of the growth curve being around 8 weeks. They will lay appx 280 eggs a year without using artificial light. Coturnix are most popular for backyard layers and act the most like chickens out of all quail breeds.

Most other breeds aren't worth considering for anything but ornamental purposes due to difficulty to obtain, hatch, and raise to adulthood. Button quail are also only ornamental. They look beautiful but they are actually about the size of a hamster.

You could keep them inside if you want. There is a lot of ammonia and nitrogen in their poo and you won't like it a bit.

Chickens can carry many diseases and parasites that they are immune to but are quite fatal to quail. They should be kept separate with no contact allowed between the species and you should wash your hands or shower after handling anything your chickens have touched, before you handle anything your quail touch. This is picture of a quail kept in a chicken coop, that has advanced corzya that it got from a healthy seeming chicken.